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Unfortunately for Papua New Guinea, new cases of polio have been detected since July. Jamie Tahana traces the origins of the pandemic in PNG, and explains how the disease could have been avoided.

In Australia, the National party has been pushing for a new agricultural visa, potentially allowing farmers to sponsor labourers from Asia or elsewhere to work in Australia. Stephen Howes argued a new visa will be counterproductive to Australia’s effort to engage with the Pacific through existing labour schemes, and at the weekend, the government decided to put the launch of this new visa on hold.

Similarly, Matthew Dornan and Tess Newton Cain summarise the Forum meeting, not only focusing on the Boe Declaration, but also on the geo-strategic competition between Taiwan and China, the new funding arrangements for the PIF, development of a new Framework for Pacific Regionalism, and more.

Gabrielle Lipton writes about the gendered effects of corporate logging in Solomon Islands, underlining how the industry, mostly foreign, puts women at risk in this part of the world.

The Asian Development Bank expands its Pacific presence with the establishment of seven new country offices in the Cook Islands, the Federated States of Micronesia, the Marshall Islands, Nauru, Palau, and Tuvalu, and four extended missions in Samoa, Solomon Islands, Tonga, and Vanuatu.

Ben Doherty reports on repeated suicide attempts by a 12-year-old refugee on Nauru, amid previous allegations of poor conditions and widespread distress among those still on the island.

The Games of Thrones-style struggle now underway between the stranded Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) and the enlivened Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP) is getting murkier by the day.